page_title: Mars Express
section_title: 2016
hierarchical_section_title: Mars Express / Scientific discoveries and important events / 2016
caption_attribution_description: English: The Martian south pole imaged during summer by the HRSC instrument aboard Mars Express.
context_page_description: Mars Express is a space exploration mission being conducted by the European Space Agency. The Mars Express mission is exploring the planet Mars, and is the first planetary mission attempted by the agency. "Express" originally referred to the speed and efficiency with which the spacecraft was designed and built. However "Express" also describes the spacecraft's relatively short interplanetary voyage, a result of being launched when the orbits of Earth and Mars brought them closer than they had been in about 60,000 years.
  Mars Express consists of two parts, the Mars Express Orbiter and Beagle 2, a lander designed to perform exobiology and geochemistry research. Although the lander failed to fully deploy after it landed on the Martian surface, the orbiter has been successfully performing scientific measurements since early 2004, namely, high-resolution imaging and mineralogical mapping of the surface, radar sounding of the subsurface structure down to the permafrost, precise determination of the atmospheric circulation and composition, and study of the interaction of the atmosphere with the interplanetary medium.
context_section_description: October 19
  Assisted with data collection and transfer for the Schiaparelli EDM lander landing.
caption: South pole of Mars by Mars Express, 2015
  ESA/DLR/FU Berlin
exif: {"Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image ExifOffset": "78", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0210", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated"}